Well, after much hair-pulling and using some language my mother never taught me, I think I've managed to get my entire story uploaded to its own website. I thought about uploading it here a section at a time, but then sanity returned. (Not that, as it turns out, my solution worked out much better in terms of ease of copying and re-formatting, but at least it has a spiffy-looking setting!)

(Oddly enough, "anamchara.webs.com" was already taken, so I had to go with "duncans-anamchara". Not that I really mind.... )

Feel free to comment either here or on my story website. (I don't know if you have to join the other website to leave comments there, but if you do have to, it's free to join.)EDITED ON 16 JAN 2012: The link above appears to be seriously borked now, with most if not all of the Anamchara links inexplicably leading to a chapter of a different story entirely, so I have uploaded the complete story here instead:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gk-QafI_2vNqoW1FFyMH-EmtJf20sWIdir2fFJKxTtg/edit?hl=en_US

If you tried the other link before and couldn't get to the story chapters, I apologize.

*sigh* In my proofreading of the chapters, I'm encountering the occasional missing word (usually ones which were formatted differently from the surrounding text, like in italics for emphasis). If you are reading the story and happen upon a sentence that seems to be missing a word or two, if you'll just leave me a comment (or cut/paste the sentence here and tell me which chapter it came from), I'll make corrections accordingly. I'm going through the story now trying to correct those errors, but it's always easy to miss something when trying to proof a multi-chapter story.

At least I don't think I have any chapters uploaded now that have 1/2 to 2/3 of the text missing, like I did last night, noticing only after hours of work and having to start pasting and re-formatting all over again.... *headdesk*

I'm doing a swift read through and then planning a more careful reread later. I'm having to take a break now as I think I have held my breath through Alaric showing Dhugal what happened in Cardosa and I may pass out.

Just had to do a quick comment that Catriona is my middle name and I rarely come across it, so it's nice to see a Deryni Catriona. I'm guessing she's a Catri-OH-na though, where in mine the o is barely there, more sort of a Catri-uh-na. Cool all the same.

Actually, there was originally a line or two in Kelson's section of the story where Dhugal makes a comment about Kelson pronouncing the name in the accent of the Isles, with the stress on the second syllable and the "o" more suggested than fully vocalized (in other words, more like how you pronounce it than how it's normally pronounced over here in the US), but then it dawned on me about halfway through writing it that I didn't even get it right half the time in my thoughts, since I'm so used to hearing it the other way, so I just struck that bit and left it up to the reader to decide how it's pronounced.

You held your breath through the Cardosa memory sharing? All of it? Lordy, woman, that shade of hypoxia blue isn't flattering on anyone!

Well my ancestry is highland and island, so that's about right. Yes, the accent is on the second bit, thinking of it, sort of Cat-RI-uh-na. More people over here say it the wrong way than the right way (from my POV) to be honest.

And hey, I have seriously capacious lungs! Every time my DD performs I pretty much hold my breath till she gets safely to the end of it. When she was playing little 20 second pieces that was fine, but dang it's hard work for those concertos now LOL.

I tried to stay consistent in my use of borrowed Gaelic phrases, sticking to Irish for Cat's occasional islander phrase and going with Scots Gàidhlig for the one time (I think?) that Dhugal speaks in his border tongue (for instance, if memory serves, Cat would say "chroi" whereas Dhugal would say "chridhe", or Cat would say "chara" but Dhugal would say "caraid."). Hopefully I got those bits right, though I've read and re-read this story so many times now in editing it, I've gone a bit cross-eyed.

I did a quick read through last night, and will go back later. I like Catriona as a name too - though it is somehow always indelibly linked in my mind with Robert Louis Stevenson's sequel to Kidnapped, LOL. (Was looking for some surnames for characters, and Balfour might fit the bill nicely. In fact, David Balfour might be a nice literary nod, and I am dying to use 'Hannay' as a nod to Buchan's hero ...)

Must admit I wasn't too sure about Duncan's extensive use of the border tongue, because we don't see it very much in the Kelson trilogy or KKB, though if you keep it limited to discussions with Duncan and Cat, it should be OK. Had to laugh at the scene where Morgan is plying Dhugal with Fianna wine to get him properly primed for the revelations about Esgair Dhu and makes both of them ill: poor Dhugal has now had two such episodes drinking with our Duke But given what happened there, I think they both needed the wine.

And I really enjoyed your explanation of the difference between 'celibacy' and 'chastity'. Laughed at the accepted reaction of the young knights to their celibacy vow - I kept thinking of that lovely little tongue-in-cheek prayer: "Lord, give me poverty, chastity and obedience, but not just yet!" (or its variation - 'not to excess')

Did I have Duncan actually using the Border tongue (aside from the word "anamchara," which Cat has to explain to him for him to catch more than just the literal meaning), or just understanding it? I figured that, growing up in Cassan and Kierney, he'd have been exposed enough of it to have some understanding of at least the basics, though as a Duke more the product of Rhemuth than the Border, he'd not be a fluent native speaker. He'd know just enough to know "OK, Cat just said something in her dialect that sounds quite similar to something I grew up hearing in Cassan, so I'm guessing it means ____." (Which is how I manage to parse out Latin sometimes; I've never taken Latin, but I've taken French, and I also know a smattering of Spanish and Italian. Can't speak any of those languages except for a little bit of French, and my memory of that is awful, but I understand more than I can actually speak.)

I wasn't actually planning for Dhugal to have that violent a reaction; it just sort of happened. I typed it, had a mental "Huh?!" reaction immediately after the sentence appeared on screen, then realized that yep, that's exactly how he would've reacted at that point and just went with it.

Every time I read about Conall's knighting, some impish part of me wants to yank that white belt off and say "Whoops! Too late!"

Oh, I meant to add that if you read it last night, you only got the first half of the story (and I think at least one of those chapters got cut off prematurely; I didn't notice Morgan's part was cut off in mid-sentence until sometime later this morning). So make sure to check it again when you've got time. I've got the full story up now.

LOL! Oh, that! Yeah, Dhugal speaks like a borderer in the books too, though KK probably uses a lighter touch with the dialect than I did. (I'm not used to writing in dialect, for one thing, so I'm basically transcribing what I'm hearing in my head, which is probably influenced at least in part by my recent listening to the audiobooks, which I think are narrated by an American who reads Dhugal's part with an exaggerated accent that would doubtless make a true Scot cringe. ) But the "cannae" and "dinnae" contractions are definitely in the print versions; I've got TKJ by my recliner and had to flip through sections of it to get some of Duncan's healing scene right.

And they have a terrible effect on my typing fingers too. For one thing, they force me to sit at a keyboard for long hours, days, even weeks at a time typing out long-winded stories I can't even send off to a publisher afterwards....

But the "cannae" and "dinnae" contractions are definitely in the print versions; I've got TKJ by my recliner and had to flip through sections of it to get some of Duncan's healing scene right.

Oh yes, and Duke Ewan of Claiborne certainly also uses such terms too, in TKJ. It's an issue that often plagues writers - how do you manage the use of dialect or portray strong local accents in a way that won't confuse many readers. And *shudders* at thought of American narrator doing pseudo Scottish accent. It's as bad as Americans trying an Australian one, because they never succeed!! At least I 'hear' Scottish accents along the lines of the UK TV series Taggart and Rebus , together with the older Hamish Macbeth, though they aren't really the thick Highland accents (which nobody would understand, LOL). But they are at least properly north of the border!

ETA: Perhaps we should complain to KK herself about the effects of her men. Or maybe this is secretly why we have to wait so long for new novels - she is constantly correcting typos!

ETA: Perhaps we should complain to KK herself about the effects of her men. Or maybe this is secretly why we have to wait so long for new novels - she is constantly correcting typos!

--------------Dear Ms. Kurtz,

I am a great admirer of your Deryni series; however, I have a problem. It seems I'm spending so much time writing fanfic in your universe, I'm neglecting a perfectly good novel in my own. Can you recommend a good 12-Steps group? Deryni Lovers Anonymous, or something like that?

There wasn't earlier today when I checked it, though there was a brief period of time a few days ago when I was uploading the chapters and the pages were having trouble refreshing. Maybe try again in a few minutes?

I just checked it myself, and the site is down for me as well. Hopefully it's just one of those intermittent server glitches and it will be back up shortly. It was fine for me a few hours ago, and I got an email from the website administrators sometime after lunchtime (trying to sell me on paid premium service....*sigh*), so it seems to have been working fine up until that point at least.